I am a big believer in SEO and writing with purpose. The purpose of writing content for your website should consist of one goal and one goal only… closing more deals and increasing your bottom line. Why else would you spend time writing when you could spend time on more effective income producing activities or, more importantly, spending more time with your family?

Am I suggesting that writing about personal issues on your real estate site is a waste of time? Not just no, but heck no! I see great value in showing your personal side in your blog. In fact, I’d highly suggest you also allow your personality to shine through when writing about real estate. Be candid, personable and not only will your content read better, your readers will find it easier to relate to you.

The time you spend writing should meet the following objectives; increase your rankings within the search engines for the keywords that are relevant to your business; and provide true value while establishing a relationship between you and your readers.

So, how do I come up with content for my website or blog? I first look inward and determine where my business needs expanding and then I decide how my article can accomplish that task. For example, if I want to work with buyers looking for new construction homes, then I will write an article about a local builder and their neighborhoods. I will focus on the keywords that will drive those website visitors looking for more information on that builder to my article. I will then optimize the content and keywords in an attempt to outrank that builder on their own name. If they are a small to medium size builder, that’s a pretty easy task! Lastly, I ensure there is a value proposition. E.g., Fill out this form for a list on homes available for immediate move-in.

When you sit down to write your next blog post or page of content for your site, I want you to ask yourself the following questions;

• “How will this article (or page of content) help me capture a new client?”
• “Will this article be relevant to potential buyers or sellers?”
• If the article is not specific to real estate, then ask, “Will this article build trust and increase my readership?”

Here are some additional, and more specific, tips on how to accomplish your goals.

1. Make sure you have a “call to action” within the post or have some type of lead capture on the page. Afterall, if you drive traffic to your website without having a way to capture it as potential business then it’s like pouring water into a bucket full of holes.
2. If you are writing content that is real estate related, pay attention to keywords to ensure your article will rank well for those keywords.
3. When writing a blog post, make sure your keywords are in the blog’s title which should automatically show up in the page title.
4. When writing a page of content for your site, make sure your keywords show up in the page title and also consider framing them in a “H1″ tag which tells the search engine that these keywords are the main “thought” for that page.
5. If possible, and without making the content look spammy, pay attention to “keyword density” by placing the keywords 2 to 4 times for every 100 words. Be consistent with the keyword phrase (e.g., when using “Stonebridge Ranch homes”, don’t switch it up and use “homes in Stonebridge Ranch” as those are considered two different long-tail keywords).
6. If you add a picture to the blog post or page, use the keyword for that image’s Alt tag and Title tag. This will help the search engine index the image for that keyword.
7. Take advantage of the content you’ve just written to link to inner pages of your website. This will help some of your other pages you want to rank well. For example, if you are writing an article on new FHA guidelines, and happen to mention McKinney Real Estate, be sure to use the words “McKinney Real Estate” as the link text and link it to an inner page. Specifically one that you have already created to rank well for McKinney Real Estate. If you remain cognizant of this throughout your site, then you will help the search engines do a better job of indexing your site. If you haven’t been doing this and already have a lot of content, consider going back through your site and past articles to add these inner links.
8. Don’t be afraid to link out to outside websites. If you are writing about a new IRS tax code, link the words “IRS tax code” back to the IRS.gov website on the exact page discussing those tax codes. Pointing your readers out to trusted “authority” websites is beneficial in your own rankings. One point of advice, use the target=”_blank” tag for the hyperlink to make sure the outside site opens in a new tab and does NOT drive them away from your site.
9. Be personable, funny, candid, transparent, etc. If the reader can relate to you, they will be more likely to bookmark your site for future reading and more importantly, more likely to call on you when the time comes to buy, sell or refer a friend.

Ultimately, like you, your blog should be goal oriented. It should be used to increase your bottom line unless, of course, you simply have nothing better to do. How do you come up with content for your blog and what goals are you trying to achieve?

Related posts:

1. Forced Registration? The $15,000 Answer!
2. Bad Internet Leads? Good Info!
3. Drip Campaigns: Something For Everyone

I use Acrobat and at first, I was signing documents in Acrobat by creating my own digital signature and then attaching an image to the signature. Adobe Acrobat will use the signature image anywhere you place the digital signature so everything will look normal when it is printed. While this works, it is a LOT of work to setup. First you have to generate a public and private key and then import them into Acrobat, etc, etc. In addition to being a lot of work, it can be a little confusing when someone is looking at the PDF file.

While I love the digital signature idea, I just don’t know enough REALTORS who could actually use it. So what other options do you have? There is another feature in Acrobat and Nitro PDF called “stamps”. This is a way to stamp parts of the document with an image like “Confidential”, or “Sign Here”, etc. Simply select the stamp and then you can go through your document just like you would with a rubber stamp.

The best part about the stamps feature is that you can import an image file and use it as a stamp. If your signature image has a transparent background, then it lets you sign on a line without covering it up. Here is a step by step process for creating a signature image file using Acrobat. The process is very similar in Nitro PDF. All you need is a piece of paper, a permanent marker, a scanner and your PDF software.

1. Using a black Sharpie permanent marker, sign your name on a white piece of paper. Make it larger than normal (1/3 of the page) to ensure the signature looks clean and crisp.
2. Scan your signature into Adobe Acrobat: File > Create PDF > From Scanner > Grayscale Document
3. When it is done scanning the signature and processing the image, you may find that Acrobat rotates your signature a little. This only happens if your signature is like mine and has a slant to it. To combat this, draw a straight line above the signature and another straight line below the signature and rescan the signature.
4. Now you will need to crop the image so the image only contains your signature: Document > Crop Pages. Here you will use the “Margin Controls” to shrink the box around your signature and the hit “OK” to close the Crop Pages dialog box.
5. Save your signature as a PDF file: File > Save. Don’t forget where you saved the signature.
6. To import your signature as a stamp, go to Tools > Comment & Markup > Stamps > Create Custom Stamp.

That’s it! Now to use your signature, go to Tools > Comment & Markup > Stamps > … and pick your signature stamp. The one downside to this method of scanning and creating a signature is that the image will always have a white background. If you are an advanced computer user and know how to create an image with a transparent background, then you can use that file instead. Now your signature can be placed in the document and look as though you actually signed it.

I am using Adobe Acrobat 9 but this tool exists in most of the older versions. As I mentioned earlier, Nitro PDF has this option and that software costs half of what Adobe Acrobat costs. I hope this tip helps you save time and make your life just a little bit easier. Do you have any great ideas for signing documents? Please share them with us below.

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Email updates are okay but they are not as personal as a phone call. If you are only sending email updates then your clients may feel that you are impersonal. Phone calls are important to help you connect with your clients. The problem is, what should be a 5 minute phone call can easily creep into 20 or 30 minutes. If you are working with several clients at a time then it’s difficult to find the time to call everyone.

So what do you do? You want to be more personal and create that connection but you don’t have time. At one point I would have told you to make the time or else you can forget about growing your business to any substantial level but now I simply tell my agents to Slydial.

Never heard of Slydial? Don’t feel bad, I didn’t know about them until a few months ago either but it has become an integral part of doing business. Slydial is a free messaging service that connect you directly to someone’s mobile voicemail. Simply put, you call into a central number, enter a client’s mobile number and leave your voice message. When you hang up, your voicemail will show up on their cell phone as if they missed your call. Pretty sly, huh?

Now, I do NOT recommend using this service every time. It should supplement your voice communication, not replace it. Hearing your voice will help your client feel more connected than an email would but can never replace a real conversation for solidifying the relationship. With that little disclaimer in place, visit Slydial.com and give them a try. You’ll be happy you did.

Their free plan requires you to listen to a short advertisement before leaving your message which isn’t bad. Their paid plan is only $0.10 per use or unlimited for $2.95 per month. They even have mobile apps for the iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Mobile.

Related posts:

1. Drip Campaigns: Something For Everyone
2. Save Time When Signing PDF Documents
3. Use Your Email Signature To Send Canned Emails

If an effective campaign is supposed to speak to the recipient’s needs and every person has different needs then how can one campaign speak to everyone? That was more of a statement and less of a question. I would like to challenge you this month to devote time to creating a campaign for each of the following:

• Local Buyer Campaign (never met/spoken)
  the only way to know if they are local is to require the phone number field during registration. Even if the phone number is fake, the first 3 digits are usually accurate. If the number gives you no clues then assume they are local for email purposes.
• Relocation Buyer Campaign (never met/spoken)
  must require phone number field to know. Offer incentives like city and neighborhood information or a special relocation packet.
• Buyer Campaign (spoken with, buying in 2+ months)
  touching base type emails in addition to emails of “just-listed” properties matching their criteria.

• Seller Campaign (spoken with)
  not every seller will be ready to sell immediately. Emails touching base in addition to a fresh CMA every 2 or 3 weeks.
• CMA/Seller Campaign
  leads from CMA form on site, can be same campaign as above with additional emails in the beginning regarding their requested CMA)
• Past Buyer Clients – 60 months (ouch, how long?)
  ask how they are, ask for referrals and offer a CMA every few months. Make sure you are the listing agent when they are ready to sell or when their neighbor sells!
• Past Seller Clients
  see above if they also bought from you, otherwise, ask how they are and ask for referrals! A newsletter can be used after 12 months.
• Newsletter – 12 months repeating FOREVER or until the world ends, whichever comes first
  pre-written, month/season specific info with a blank spot left for current events. This goes to EVERYONE, past clients, future clients, friends, family and inmates… okay, I know what you’re thinking, family might be a stretch.

TIP: To make this a more attainable goal with immediate results, do not pick one campaign at a time. Write out the first week for each campaign and then move on to the second week for each and so on. Yes, that’s what I said. It goes against all that is natural but you will find this tip will help you implement each campaign faster while keeping you fresh with ideas for writing. Buyer campaigns can feed you ideas for seller campaigns and vise versa. If you pick one campaign and attempt to write out a whole year’s worth of emails then you will discover first hand what writer’s block means. Plus, if it takes you a week to get through writing out one campaign then it will be months before you finally write out the last campaign missing out an opportunity to reach more people.

TIP 2: Services like Constant Contact, Mail Chimp and iContact are great ways to implement your campaigns and help ensure they arrive in the intended inboxes. They also give you the ability to monitor the open and click-thru rates for improved lead conversion tracking.

Did I forget anything? Are there any other campaign types you can think of? Campaigns for Investor maybe? Please share your list or ideas below. *Disclaimer- drip campaigns should NOT be the only source of long-term communication! They have a greater probability for getting caught in email filters of an unspeakably horrific nature. It should be used to supplement your communications, not replace it.

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1. Bad Internet Leads? Good Info!
2. Forced Registration? The $15,000 Answer!
3. Free Up Time With Slydial

Let’s first look at each side of the debate to gain a better understanding of each and the value they bring.

ARGUMENT- Capture Your Hard-Earned Website Traffic As Leads – Force Registration!
The argument makes sense given the fact that most visitors will NEVER register if they are not forced to. If you truly understand the life-cycle of an Internet home buyer then you will understand why they will not register voluntarily… at least not without some significant motivation. Where this argument falls flat is when you step back and look at the percentage of bogus leads that are created and the wasted man-hours determining that they are garbage. The bogus leads are not always as easy to identify as “mickey@mouse.com”. Then there is also the point that visitors who refuse to register will simply never come back reducing your overall website traffic significantly. Still, despite the number of bogus leads, good leads are still generated and you will still close a few deals which is the whole reason we even bother driving traffic to our website.

ARGUMENT- The Internet Must Be Free!
On the opposite side of the debate is the argument that the Internet must be free. Their argument’s strongest point is that if the largest real estate sites online, like Zillow, Realtor.com, and Trulia are free, then why would anyone want to register on a small local site. Or rather, why register for something that you can get free elsewhere? This argument is very hard for many people to accept. If you are only receiving a few hundred people to your website each month and paying dearly for it, how can you be sure they will register when they are ready? That’s a huge risk for anyone to take but don’t worry, I have already taken that risk for you… to the tune of $15,000.

So what’s the answer? Who’s right? Unfortunately the answer is not as simple as A or B but I can give you the formula needed to gain the greatest lead generation from your website IDX efforts. Let me begin by explaining how I tested and achieved my results.

In the beginning, like almost every other real estate professional with a website, I was nervous about leaving my website traffic to fate. However, unlike most agents, I decided to run a test to determine the best scenario. I started out with a 3 month budget of $5,000 per month. My site was brand-spanking new so the only traffic I received was through PPC from search engines like Google, MSN, Yahoo and even Homegain. I ran the following three tests and tracked the micro-conversions.

TEST 1 – Forced Registration
I started my new site by forcing every lead to register for their home search during the first 30 days. The results were very close to what I had expected. I received 3,448 visitors of which, 7% converted into a lead. Of the 241 leads, 62% had a bad phone number but only 47% had a bad email address. That left me with 128 viable leads for my team to work. I waited 9 months to measure the return on investment (which is not really long enough if you are truly managing your leads for the long term) and found that we were able to convert a reasonable number of the viable leads which paid for that first test many, many times over.

The downside to this scenario is that I discovered (as I had expected) only a small handful of the people that bounced/refused to register ever came back.

TEST 2 – Free Home Search
This test was scary for me which is why I started with the forced registration. I wanted to make sure we had some leads to work and some money coming in just in case this second test failed to produce. During the second month we had 3,603 visitors (thanks to a little tweaking to our campaigns) of which less than .05% registered. Yes, you heard me, I had 18 people register. I still had about the same percentage of fake phone numbers since that was a required field but I had only 1 fake email address. Percentage-wise, that was an incredible percentage of real leads however the overall number of leads made me want to throw up. I felt sick for days.

Of the leads that we did capture, most registered to save their search or receive e-alerts of just-listed properties. Only one registered for more information a property and as luck would have it, she was a Realtor that LOVED my map-based home search feature and preferred to use my site over the MLS system.

The real question here is, how many people kept coming back to my site and eventually registered? It’s hard to tell since I was unable to track their IP past 60 days but during that 60 days, I didn’t have as many return visitors as I would have liked. Consider the following, unless they bookmark your site or your site shows up on the first page of their search term ALL the time, it’s easy to forget the domain name. Let’s be honest, how many times have you found a site you loved and forgot to bookmark it just to spend hours looking for it again? Needless to say, a “Free Home Search” was far from “free” for me. Ouch. On a side note, we ended up closing almost the exact percentage of leads as we did in the first test scenario but the actual number of closings was still very small.

TEST 3 – The Hybrid Model
After that dismal second month, I was happy to start testing my “Hybrid Model”. I was originally going to start out with this model but I knew I could never be sure if it worked the best unless I tested all three and at a volume where the results could truly be measured. This model consisted of allowing the visitor to search for a given number of properties or conduct a specific number of searches before asking them to register. I believed that if they saw the true value of my site’s search over Zillow or Realtor.com then more visitors would register, even if they were forced to.

To my satisfaction the results were very good (though I think they could be better). We had 3,821 site visitors (more tweaking of course) of which 13% registered. Of the 496 people that registered, 65% had bad phone numbers but only 8% had a bad email address. That is a HUGE improvement for email addresses over the first test. That gave my team 456 viable leads to work and cut my cost per lead drastically.

TEST 4 – The Hybrid Model, 2nd Edition – Not Ready
I have one more model I would like to test but have yet to request either of our IDX providers to make this custom change to their registration. My idea is to use the Hybrid Model but not actually force registration. Instead, the registration box would pop up after viewing the first four homes but they could close it and continue searching. The box would pop up two more times during their search, each time with a different benefit to registering. In the end, if they chose not to register then … I haven’t gotten that far but would like to.

What do you think? If you tested this fourth model would you force registration at the third pop up or would you simply let the Internet fly free? I would love your thoughts and opinions. Have you tested any of these models and if so, what kind of success have you had?

Related posts:

1. Bad Internet Leads? Good Info!
2. Increase Your Bottom Line By Writing Effective Content
3. Drip Campaigns: Something For Everyone

Ideally, we would all have the perfect real estate photographer on staff to capture the perfect listing in the perfect light and life would be perfect. Unfortunately, few agents can even afford an assistant more less a photographer. The next best thing would be to hire a freelance real estate photographer which I would definitely recommend if you have the means, but not ever agent can. So then what? Are we stuck with embarrassingly amateur looking pictures?

No! The next best thing to having a photographer is to buy a great camera that can make any amateur look good. Yes, those cameras exist and I am here to help you identify what to look for. For a small upfront investment, you can score more listings and sell your properties a little faster. Yes, you heard me, it’s a magic gadget!

There are two types of cameras to look at, point and shoot cameras and (the far-superior) DSLR cameras. Regardless of which you camera type you choose to go with, there are 5 things to look for.

1. Low price
2. Widest angle lens possible
3. Flash. Stop groaning you purists.
4. Shooting in the RAW. Okay, wrong purists! RAW is a format like JPG but on steriods.
5. Tripod

So let’s talk about each and why they are important.

Price
Why is price so important? Well, unless you are a photography enthusiast, then it is important to see a quick return on your camera investment. If you spend too much money then that goes right out the window. Don’t skimp but avoid splurging on the best unless you plan on making a career of this new found talent. FREE TIP- If you get good, you can charge your fellow REALTORS a fee to shoot the pictures for them.

Ultra wide angle lens
An ultra wide angle lens is very important to real estate photography. In fact, dare I say it? The wide angle feature may be even more important that the actual camera. Large rooms look larger and small rooms actually show up in the picture… even half baths! Below are two shots taken of the same scene. One is a normal point and shoot camera and one is with an ultra wide angle lens. As you can see, there is NO comparison.

Unfortunately, there is WAY too much information regarding wide angle lenses that I could hope to possibly fit it in so I will just list a few point and shoot cameras that do a decent job along with a few wide angle lenses for DSLR cameras that are superb (not a complete list so no griping).

Point And Shoot

• Ricoh Caplio GX100 or GX200
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3
• Samsung NV24HD
• Leica D-Lux 4

DSLR Lenses

• NIKON DSLR- Nikon 12-24mm, Sigma 10-20mm, Tamron 11-18mm
• CANON DSLR- Canon 10-22mm, Sigma 10-20mm, Tamron 11-18mm

Flash
I am sure you are thinking to yourself, what camera doesn’t have a flash? This section is more for those who venture into the DSLR territory. Some point and shoot cameras offer a hot shoe at the top to add an external flash. That may be worth looking into but I have never tried it so I can only offer an opinon.

A good flash will brighten up a dark room and help eliminate that grainy appearance from a dark image. The problem with using a flash is the shadows it casts around the room. One way to help eliminate this is to point the flash at the ceiling and to use a diffuser to help spread the light evenly around the room. Suddenly that dark theater room looks beautiful and inviting.

Below are too shots taken of the same scene. One with a high-end point and shoot camera with built-in flash and one using a DSLR with a mounted flash and diffuser. You can see a huge difference between the two shots. Amazing what a $150 flash can make.

Shooting in the RAW.
Don’t be crude! I doubt there are many home sellers that would let you walk around their house taking pictures like that so just get it out of your mind… and no, it would not be good niche to start.

With all joking aside, shooting in the RAW is a great way to go if you have the right camera and the right software to adjust the images. The RAW format is an image format like JPG except that it captures more information while the picture is taken and saves the image processing for later. Unlike a JPG where you can only tweak the images on your computer a little before the images start to look grainy or worse, RAW images can be adjusted by a lot more and still look great. Plus, changes that you make to the picture are non-destructive. Meaning, whatever adjustments you make can always be undone later.

To be more precise, a RAW image is like a digital negative. It allows you to significantly adjust the exposure, saturation, white balance, etc., while maintaining a clean crisp image. You’d think a pro spent time setting up each shot perfectly before taking the shot.

There is a downside of course. To use RAW, you must have a camera that will shoot in the RAW format and very few point and shoot cameras will do that. Secondly, you must use special software to make adjustments. My personal favorite is Adobe Lightroom ($200) followed closely by Adobe Photoshop Elements ($90).

Tripod
Last but certainly not least is a tripod… yes, I know, cameras do not come with tripods. I had to add this in because I can assure you, your pictures will look a dozen times better if you set your camera to the correct exposure and use a tripod. When a room is too dark, the shutter needs to stay open longer to adjust for the lack of light. ANY movement at all will blur the shot. Plus, the longer the shutter is open, the more light is allowed in which can decrease the noise in a dark image. I use a tripod on every shot and I even go as far as using a $10 wireless remote for my Nikon D40 and D90 to make sure I don’t shake it even a little.

Below is a picture of the gear I use along with some sample pictures that I have taken recently.


I hope this information is helpful. Please comment and let me know your thoughts and opinions on this topic. I love gadgets, and though I am by NO means a professional photographer, I love to talk about it.

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Ditch the doc and use your email signature instead. Many email apps like MS Outlook allow you to create multiple email signatures. Once you create your default signature, go back and create all of your canned messages. Then when you open an email, just select the alternate email signature and KABOOM, there it is. Sorry for yelling, I was going for effect. I personally have around a dozen canned messages set up as signatures in Outlook.

Don’t have Outlook? What about Gmail? Gmail offers a great plug-in called “Canned-Messages” which can be found under Settings inside of the Labs tab.

Not using Gmail? Then if you’re using Firefox, you can install a very cool plug-in called WiseStamp. This is a great plug-in for Firefox that allows you to create multiple email signatures and better still, it works with Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and many other webmail systems. Read my article on my “Top Firefox Plug-in Picks”.

Not using Firefox??? … Wow, then I don’t think anyone can help you! Not hating on IE or Safari, just loving on FFs capabilities. I do not know many web developers not using Firefox which should say something to you.

Do you have any great ideas for sending canned/pre-written emails? What about other creative ideas for using email signatures? Please share your ideas!

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1. Save Time When Signing PDF Documents
2. Free Up Time With Slydial
3. Drip Campaigns: Something For Everyone

As stressful as a bad lead can be, some valuable information can come from the bad information. Did you know you can use a bad phone number to improve your email communication? There are times when you will receive a new home buyer lead where the name looks real, the email doesn’t bounce but the number is a fake (per the irritated person on the other end of the line when you try to call). Thanks to human nature, most people lack creativity. When they input a fake phone number, the first three digits are usually accurate. For example, if your phone number is 972-867-5309 (sorry for the 80’s reference), then most people will enter 972-555-1212 or something similar. The beautiful thing is that now you know if they are local or a possible relocation. This will help you determine which email marketing campaign to place them on. If you do not have different email campaigns for local or relo buyers then take a moment to read my article, “Drip Campaigns: Something For Everyone“. A campaign that speaks directly to the recipient’s needs will greatly increase your conversion rate.

What if the email address and phone number is bad? Well, unfortunately it’s a lead destined for the trash but if you are doing a good job in tracking the micro-conversions of your visitors, then this lead can still bring value. Insane I know! I grew up in Alaska and if I learned anything, it was to waste nothing… not even that nasty whale blubber. Who knew whale blubber could be worth so much?

So how does this relate to bad home buyer leads? To answer that, I first need to explain what I mean by micro-conversions. A micro-conversion is a single step a visitor takes on the way to becoming a client. To track “on site” micro-conversion you must have website analytic tracking set up (e.g., Google Analytics). Here are some examples of micro-conversions:

• Click-thru rate from your pay-per-click ad
• Visitor bounce rate
• Desired actions by visitor
• Visitor registration or form filled – Lead

So now that we are on the same page, let’s take a step back and think about the four micro-conversions listed above. What does this bad lead tell us? First, it tells us which source and ad successfully brought that lead to the site. Second, it gives us trackable website data to help identify which landing pages are working and which ones visitors fail to connect with. Third, depending on the phone number given and whether their IP address was recorded, it helps us identify what part of the country our ads are connecting with. This lead may have been compelled to give bogus info but that doesn’t mean the next visitor will. The fact is, your ad worked in getting a visitor through the pipeline and into your inbox. Count that as a partial success.

TIP: If you notice that you have a lot of leads originating from one part of the country, consider creating an ad geo-targeted specifically for that area with language speaking directly to them. You will notice your click-thru rate skyrocket for that ad. As a result, what you were paying $1.47 per click to be in the 5th position, you may find yourself spending $1.21 to be in the 1st position.

Do you have any ideas on how to turn a bad lead into useful information? Please share your thoughts.

Related posts:

1. Forced Registration? The $15,000 Answer!
2. Drip Campaigns: Something For Everyone
3. Increase Your Bottom Line By Writing Effective Content